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Pechanga Arena
The Pechanga Arena (formerly San Diego Sports Arena from 1966 to 2004; iPayOne Center from 2004–2007 and Valley View Casino Center from 2007-2018) is an indoor arena located on Sports Arena Blvd in Point Loma, San Diego, California off of Interstate 8. The arena was built in 1966 by Robert Breitbard, a local football hero who played for Hoover High School and San Diego State University, for "a modest" $6.4 million dollars. The arena opened on November 17, 1966 when more than 11,000 pro hockey fans watched the San Diego Gulls (then a member of the Western Hockey League) win their season opener, 4–1, against the Seattle Totems. The arena seats 12,000 for arena football, 12,920 for ice hockey, 14,500 for basketball and tennis, 5,450 for amphitheater concerts and stage shows, between 8,900 and 14,800 for arena concerts, 13,000 for ice shows and the circus, and 16,100 for boxing and wrestling. Naming rights The venue's original name was the 'San Diego International Sports Center'. The name was later renamed the 'San Diego Sports Arena which it kept until 2004. In the latter year, and until 2007, iPayOne, a real estate savings company based in Carlsbad, California, held the arena's naming rights. The deal was worth $2.5 million over five years. On April 8, 2007, Ernie Hahn II, CEO of Arena Group 2000 which holds the leasing rights to the property, announced that AG2000 has defaulted Ipayone out of the remainder of the contract for non payment. According to Hahn, iPayOne has been in and out of default in payments - mostly balloon payments - in the last year. In addition, iPayOne appears to be halting operations and is accepting no new listings. As a result, the name was changed back to the San Diego Sports Arena while Hahn seeks a new naming rights sponsor. Redevelopment Between 1995 and 2006, the arena was the home venue to the San Diego Gulls of the ECHL and the San Diego Riptide of the AF2, but both franchises folded. The Gulls franchise majority owner was Arena Group 2000 LP, a private company which is also the current arena leaseholder. When the team was disbanded - and not sold - there was local speculation regarding the company's closely-held secret intentions for the property. Many outsiders suspected implosion of the Arena and redevelopment of the property, as redevelopment of this chunk of real estate had supposedly been a prime motivation for Ron Hahn (of the Hahn Company) when he first took an interest in this property in 1991. Future Development will depend on the City of San Diego and the vision that both they and AEG have for sports and entertainment in San Diego. The venue continues to host 20–25 concerts each year and in 2007 hosted 35 concerts ranging from Justin Timberlake to Eric Clapton. Other San Diego venues, like Cricket Amphitheater (formerly Coors Amphitheatre), an outdoor concert venue of the typical amphitheater/lawn configuration located south of downtown San Diego, just north of Mexico in Chula Vista, Viejas Arena (formerly Cox Arena) at San Diego State University (on the eastern edge of the city), Soma (which is a modest nightclub that brings in quality acts despite being smaller than the midsized venues of Fourth and B, The House of Blues, Humphries, or Anthology, and worth mentioning because of its location in the same Loma Portal/Midway neighborhood as the arena), and the myriad Casinos that pepper the outskirts of San Diego County are becoming exceedingly popular destinations for musical events as well. The San Diego Sports Arena remains the only ice arena facility in San Diego County, and hosts annual skating events such as Stars on Ice and Disney on Ice with Feld Entertainment twice each year. The facility is the only arena in San Diego that has a group sales department and for this reason hosts almost all of the major family shows to come to San Diego like the Harlem Globetrotters, Sesame Street Live and Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus each year. The arena also serves as a home court for the L.A. Lakers in a preseason NBA game each Fall. The property continues to derive income from the Kobey's Swap Meet, held every weekend in the west end of the parking lot which attracts over one million people annually. The Boston Bruins, whose home ice was of the same dimensions, used the San Diego Gulls as a farm team in the 1960s and 1970s. The San Diego hockey fans, of the WHA (World Hockey Association- San Diego Mariners) came to the San Diego Sports Arena in 1974. External links *San Diego Sports Arena *San Diego Sports Arena - MySpace page Category:ECHL arena Category:AHL Rinks Category:World Hockey Association venues Category:Indoor ice hockey venues in California